Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs Review

Written by Paul Barbara Thursday, 28 January 2010 03:41

User Rating: / 3
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Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs is another movie to video game release.  Unfortunately given this, it’s often met with the videogame industry stereotype that the game basically is going to be poor.  The truth is many movie to video game releases are indeed poor and thus amplifies this stereotypical argument.

However, to dismiss these games is also foolhardy as well.  I do believe the best reviewer is the gamer themselves, as ultimately everyone has a different experience when playing through a game.  Despite Metacritic scores and averages, your opinion may differ vastly to theirs, and it’s with this that I encourage you to try this game, despite the fact that it’s not groundbreaking or brilliant, it is fun and that’s what counts.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs puts you in the role or Flint Lockwood, who is a wacky scientist in search of a great invention; much like in Honey I shrunk the kids.  However for all intensive purposes, the invention is a satellite that materialises food and rains that food down on the town of Swallow Falls.  Yet somehow the food generator has gotten out of control and the residents are finding it hard to swallow the enormous portions of food that rain down on them.

During your game play you will meet some other supporting characters, but they game doesn't bother to elaborate on the story or provide context. For those not familiar with the film, don’t worry because you won’t feel lost in any way.  The game is extremely straight forward and stands independent of the film in many respects.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs also can be played in co-op mode which is nice; given you’ll more than likely have several children who want to play this game.  The other character is a pet monkey called Steve. At any point during the adventure, a second player can jump into the game as Steve and play alongside Flint, which is a must for this sort of game.

The games introduction is in the form of a retro-game slideshow, reminiscent of a Nintendo Entertainment System game from the 80’s. Shortly after the introduction you are placed into the town covered with Ice Cream and your weapon of choice, a hair dryer and must set forth melting Ice Cream and Ice Blocks to find your way forward.  In fact throughout the game, your weapons arsenal varies from other modified kitchen instruments such as a peeler, large oversized fork, and a punching glove.  All of these will assist you in tackling those giant strawberries, carrots, broccoli and other vegetables that are thrown your way.  The game does give you a variety of tools/weapons which does offer variability.

In terms of difficulty though, the game is relatively easy.  In one sitting of around 5 hours, I have completed the game and notched up a healthy 800 gamer score.  The achievements in this game are easy, and the last few that I didn’t earn require a small amount of back tracking to complete.  This title is certainly aimed at fans of the movie and children of course.  However there are some puzzles that will require some assistance. For example, Flint might need to jump up on the roof of a house, but can't reach the ledge. He can use the fork to pick up a pad of butter and place it in front of a giant hamburger. Then melt the butter with the heat gun, turning it into a slick goo. Then he can use the boxing glove to punch the burger into place.

Visually the game is pleasing and colourful.  The environments are nicely rendered and the enemies are animated well.  I actually quite like the introduction and in-between chapter sequences that are acted out in 8-bitt fashion, it’s very entertaining.   The sound is also acceptable but somewhat repetitive in terms of one liner comments by Flint.

6.0 / 10